Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Tim Gardner (my PI) and Michael Molla wrote a guest blog post at PLoS on how science can learn from the movie industry. At the end of a movie, the role of everyone in the movie is clearly spelled out in the movie credits, while on scientific publications you only have a list of ordered names from which to try and infer the authors' role.

Excerpt from their scientific credit list post:There is a better system, and it's already in use in the film industry -- a credit list. Each person who contributed to a movie has a specific credit describing his or her contribution. If one's contribution fills more than one role, that person's name can appear more than once.

Apparently, I contributed enough to this particular scientific endeavor of Tim and Michael to earn a spot in the credits:

Excerpt from their scientific credit list post:Such a research credit system would have huge benefits for one's career prospects; and it might encourage more effective collaborations. Moreover, these credits could easily be tracked by scientist or project in a database akin to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). It could provide an alternative to the ever-so-important citation factors as a means of assessing one's scientific impact. And maybe one day there will even be an Academy Awards of Science.

Here's hopin I win the Best Reader award at the 2008 Academy Awards of Science.